Click here to read church vision expert Will Mancini’s thoughts on seven key practices to shape church culture. These practices can be used intentionally by church leaders to help articulate and shape culture and in turn clarify vision. (Photo by Alex Wiebe used under Creative Commons License. Thanks!)
Writing in Yes! Magazine, author Ross Chapin offers 10 suggestions for how to foster greater community and love where you live. Bloom where you are planted by incorporating Chapin’s ideas into your context–at home or at your house of worship. Click here to access Chapin’s article. (Photo by Paul Krueger used under Creative Commons License. […]
Clergy are often reluctant to raise the subject of money. They know it is a sensitive area and people might get upset. Good church members are hard to find. Why risk losing them by raising a provocative topic? And clergy are sensitive to the reputation of the church in many quarters that “the church is only after our money.” But there are smart ways to raise the issue. (Photo © Carlos Santa Maria – Fotolia.com)
The most difficult kind of benevolence fund contribution to evaluate (but by far the most common) is a contribution that designates a specific recipient. Churches need to exercise caution, lest they fall afoul of IRS guidelines for tax-exempt contributions. (Illustration (c) 2009 BORN, via bigstock.com)
How secure are your congregation’s procedures and policies for handling cash assets? Click here for a comprehensive white paper from Evangelical Christian Credit Union. This guide is easily downloadable as a PDF document and would be good reading for Church Councils, Finance Committee members, and anyone responsible for handling cash assets. (Photo by Luke & […]
To a present culture of materialism, selfishness, and consumerism, we are called to model in our own lives and teach others Christian financial stewardship. Each of us clergy and lay leaders can be trained in our discipling to not only make good stewards of our people, but also to talk the language of fund raising and do so with the conviction that it is an important part of our Christian ministry. (Photo by Fallonyates, used by Creative Commons license.)
By the Rev. Dr. William O. Avery
The whole subject of stewardship is limited to the needs of the giver, not the needs of the receiver. The truth is that it really is better to give than to receive — better for the giver’s own spiritual development. This is biblical. This is the gospel of good giving. Pastors should not become a pleader of needs – endorse the proclaimed financial goals of the church, but do not plead!
By The Rev. Casey Zesch
An irony: that we work hard to get dollars and then have to be saved from them! Lest our dollars – and the possessions they buy -should possess us, why not turn dollars into sense? A sense, that is, of personal, congregational, and churchwide mission.
